Random Pictures

This is a bridge down by the Quad Cities. It's called this because of 4 cities that are all connected on the Iowa/Illinois line.

                  This is a picture as we are coming into Chicago and heading towards Michigan Ave.

                             Navy Pier, very cool place to visit in Chicago.

                            Somewhere on Michigan Ave in Chicago.

                                    Just an old building in Colby.

                                     Some crazy stuffed animals at Dorchester Days

                                    Fire trucks in the Colby Cheese Days Parade

                                   More Colby Cheese Days Parade

Snow!!!!

         We got a lot more snow the other day and the building behind us has a huge amount on their roof!

It was actually a little on the warm side this past week, it got up into the 20's and the boys wanted to go play in the snow. Baya seemed to be enjoying it too! She really enjoyed running the boys over in the snow which they of course don't like at all! Lots of crying and telling me Baya is being naughty! But not bad enough for them to come in. I did a lot of drying of mittens and pants so they could keep going out. Even at the age of 3 Luke knows enough to go check the dryer to see if his pants are dry enough to go back out. They were sure enjoying themselves!

Oliver

Oliver, this cat is a huge pain in my butt, he is so arrogant and spoiled! As you can see from the pictures he absolutely refuses to look at the camera! I am pretty sure I am only annoying him! 

Ah yes, besides not looking at the camera he covers his eyes!

 Now we aren't even going to keep our eyes open, the flash must be bothering him, so I play with my settings and turn off the flash.

 Hmmm....maybe I'll just play with this thing in my face, still keeping eyes half closed.

Alright....I'm looking! But look how pissed he looks! Like....you are so annoying...I am trying to sleep!!!

Ok, that was as good as it gets! See what I mean, what a pain in the butt! Oliver is 6 years old. I saw an add in the paper to give away a pumpkin colored kitten and when we went down to see him, he was just tiny! An elderly man had caught him and a few other kittens in a live trap and was trying to find them homes. We took Oliver and his first visit to the vet found eye infections, respiratory infections, worms and I forget what else. He was just teeny and even the vet was amazed at how sick he was and still alive. Well 6 years later he rules the house! I'm really not sure if he realizes he's a cat. He plays with the dogs, fetches small stuffed animals and absolutely REFUSES to acknowledge "kitty kitty" If you want him for something you must say his name.
Oh and he's unbelievably picky about what he eats, must be fresh cat food every day or you get one of his looks and as you can see from the pictures he is not tiny anymore! So as you must have guessed by now I am extremely bored with winter, I am taking pictures of my cat for crying out loud! Must get out of house! Here's to Spring coming soon!

Remembering back to a wet summer day!

 I was going thru my pictures today and found these from last summer. We had an unbelievable amount of rain one day and this is what the ball park looked like the next day....and this was after most of the water had gone down....if you look at the one of the field where they are playing that entire field was covered in water the night before. The kids sure were having fun, the sand box was a giant pool/sand box.

 There's Lukey right in the middle with black shorts on and I think Nash is in the back on the right side in the dark blue shirt.

 There's Dave in the middle of the water/field. I had just missed him doing a diving catch right thru the water!

                       Luke again minus a shirt and Nash crawling onto the shovel toy behind Luke.

                           



Ah summer, can't wait to have it back!!!!!!



Frosty Morning!

• It was finally feeling a little bit warmer this morning so I decided to go out and snowshoe a little bit. I took my camera and tried to take a few pictures of how pretty it was outside with all the frost on everything. Here are a few, hope you enjoy!

Drew Elise Baptism

Courtney and Dave's pretty little Drew was baptised last week along with Tylan (above). Her parents are good friends of Courtney and Dave's and are also Drew's godparents. Dave and Courtney are godparents to Tylan so they were baptised together.    

  

Here is Drew with Courtney.



Baby Drew



Father Hackel with Drew and Tylan

                                                   

Dave, Courtney and Drew

The Smiths

New Desk for Courtney!

Our oldest daughter Courtney has been asking her dad for a desk since she and her family moved into their new house. Just something simple and the whole time Randy was asking me "are you sure this is what she wants?" Randy sometimes has a hard time making things exactly the way our girls want them. Oh I have to include grand kids also. He worked on a school project with Peyton, the American Buffalo, and the whole time we were in the shop I could hear them arguing until I finally heard Peyton say "Grandpa, it's not you project it's mine, can you please build it the way I want it?!?!" Sometimes you just have to stand firm! This is an extremely simple design but very nice. Very open. Randy actually built this over the weekend. The top is an interior door that was taken out of the house Courtney and Dave live in now, and we laid a piece of glass on top of it.

Below you can see the door with the glass on top of it.

I have to repeat myself here,Randy has a very hard time with very simple designs, he always feels like he needs to do more. Our daughter Megan asked for a small end stand for beside her bed. "Just 4 legs and a top dad" she kept saying. She ended up with a small enclosed cabinet made from cherry and maple with a door and a drawer. That was as simple as he could force himself to be! So it was almost impossible for him to stick to Courtney's plan but he did and she is very happy with it!